January 16th - Messina, Italy

We had a beautiful day in Italy, or more precisely Sicily which is part of Italy but an island with its own personality.  If you picture Italy as a boot, the island it’s kicking with its toe is Sicily.  This stop was supposed to be in Naples and we were really looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, some sort of problem with the wharf. or the cruise terminal. or something or other caused us to cancel it.   Well maybe next time…

Of course, Sicily is most famous for its connection to the Mafia.  We were told as a cultural nicety we should not ask about the mafia…however the ship ran a ‘Godfather’ tour that went to all the places used for filming on the island…so much for not talking about it.

We took a ship excursion to Taormina and it went very well.  For a change the process from the ship to the tour bus went very smoothly and was well planned.  Taormina is a beautiful little town about one hour from the port city of Messina.  Even though it’s January the weather was very nice even a little warm in the low 60’s but with full sunshine.  It felt great after being at sea.

From Taormina you get a great view of Mt Etna, the famous volcano and the picture that leads this blog entry.  Etna is still active and erupted last in 2002.  As you can see from the pictures, steam still comes out of the crater at the top and that helps keep it from erupting more often despite it being very active.  The lava flows from previous eruptions created very good soil for growing grapes and there is a thriving business in ‘Mt Etna Wine’.  We saw some of our fellow travelers buying it.  I bought a lava necklace!  Actually, it’s lava beads with pearls (not real ones) and so it’s black and cream.  Very pretty and a nice souvenir.

The city streets are very pretty with plenty of little side streets to go up and down, including the narrowest of alleys that everyone had to take a picture of, including me!

The island was invaded by many different groups including the Greeks and then the Romans.  The Greeks built a theater for plays and music but when the Romans took over it was converted into a coliseum and used for gladiator and wild animal fights.  Nowadays it’s used for pop concerts and art festivals.

Making our way back from the coliseum we saw this hearse parking in front of a church.  Four burly men got out and walked in separate directions.  Was the mafia sending a message?  We don’t know but it was the fanciest hearse we’ve ever seen.

When we got back to Messina, we walked around the town a little and all I can say is that I’m glad we decided to go to Taormina instead of staying in Messina.  There isn’t much to see but as you can tell from the picture below, it was easy to spot our ship above the buildings from just about anywhere.

We now have two days at sea and then we’re in Israel for two days.  Israeli customs agents boarded the ship in Messina and we will be doing a face to face with them in the next couple of days and that should make it easier to go ashore when we arrive, at least that’s the plan.  Fred and I don’t have a ship excursion in Israel, we decided to go with a semi-private tour with far less people and more reasonably priced.  It will be two very long touring days but we hope at the end we will have seen the highlights of Israel.